Posts Tagged ‘Stress’

Many of us now call ourselves “Wellness DCs” or “Healthy Lifestyle Doctors” or some other impressive sounding title - I guess we are trying to differentiate our services from the other “garden variety” DCs? But these titles often are a reflection of us, and not a true reflection of how our customers really see us, or how they themselves behave. Maybe we exercise regularly, get adjusted every 1-2 weeks, keep a positive outlook, eat organic etc. But then we have 80% of our practice on monthly schedules, and have no discernable influence on their other healthy habits?

I suffered a daunting revelation when I upgraded my technique and scheduling systems to a more “wellness” driven focus. You see I used to spend ~15 minutes with each client, and they loved my soft-tissue techniques, and often complimented me on my ability to find the sore spots and to provide instantaneous relief from their musculoskeletal aches and pains. Not that there is anything wrong with this - but my mission is to improve the health and wellness of everyone that I can influence - not to be the natural alternative to Nurofen and Panadeine. And when I changed my technique to a neurological model, many left the practice before they could possibly experience the extra health benefits - why? “Because I didn’t rub their shoulders”!

So, what do YOUR clients really think of YOU? Here is the million dollar question to ask your practice members that will inform you of the truth…

“If you could come and have an adjustment whenever you wanted to, and it didn’t cost you anything, how often would you come?”

1) If the answer is, “Oh I’d come every single week, and sometimes even more”: Congratulations - you probably are truly a wellness DC - your clients truly comprehend the global benefits of an adjustment. They probably perceive the reduction in tension and stress, the improved sleep patterns, the maximised immunity, and the increases in energy after each adjustment.

2) “Oh, I’d come every 4-6 weeks”: Maybe you should replace the title “Wellness” with “Maintenance” DC. Your clients have probably discovered that if they go longer than 4-6 weeks, that their aches and pains start to increase in severity and regularity. Your periodical adjustments offer them effective and lasting pain relief.

3) “Oh, I’d come a 2-3 times a year”: I actually don’t quite understand this concept - maybe it’s because they get their car serviced twice a year, and go to the dentist twice a year, and floss their teeth twice a year, and make love twice a year? I’m not sure of what possible benefit two adjustments per year could have - maybe I underestimate the power of an adjustment?

4) “Oh, I’d come in whenever I had a problem”: Whoops, if you get a lot of this answer, then it is time to change your title to “garden variety DC”.

To take this question to the next level: If your practice members answer that they would like to come more often than they actually do - the next question to ask is - “What do we need to do to help you come as often as you would really like to?” - now its time to work out a strategy, schedule, fee, that makes their dream a reality…

Imagine if every Australian was allowed to receive one adjustment per week, and that adjustment was covered under Medicare? But here’s the condition: You can only deliver one adjustment per week, per person, and you have to demonstrate the measure benefits of those adjustments every three months using impartial objective outcome tools. I guess there would be a minority of DCs who would think they had found easy street and delivered any old adjustment, in any old fashion, without much consideration for where or how they delivered that adjustment - just so long as the cheques kept rolling in. But for the rest of us, we would want to be completely diligent in ensuring that this one adjustment was a good one, a really good one, and that we adjusted the segment which most needed to be adjusted, and in the right direction because you can’t just hit it on both sides - you only get one shot!!

Think about this in the context of how you currently prioritise how you deliver your adjustments each and every day:

1) Do you start at the bottom and work your way up, or some other variation of this theme? Check and adjust the low back, check and adjust the thoracics, then roll them over and check and adjust their neck? Most DCs have an order in which they adjust everyone. It may not be the order I mentioned, but in most cases it will be a “routine” based on the practitioner’s habit as opposed to some patient-centred findings dictating where you start and finish. STOP IT: Take an extra few seconds to analyse your patients’ spines and make a decision about which is the most important adjustment to make on that visit.

2) Do you adjust the same segments in the same order, any three visits in a row? I thought your practice members were supposed to be getting better and progressing to a new level of health - why then would they continue to have the same subluxations? If you are activating retracing in their body then surely the next layer of subluxation should appear and need to be corrected? And, since they last saw you a lot of different stresses have presented, so they may have a new and different layer appearing on the next visit. Why do we say that the body is a self-healing adaptive organism and then fail to adapt and change our adjustments to keep up? BEWARE: If you check your notes and see that patients are getting the same mix of adjustments on every visit then there’s only two options - A) you put the stuck pattern there with your repetitive habituating stimulus, or, B) their spine isn’t evolving under your care - either way you need to try a new strategy.

3) Do you have a system that allows you to make a live analysis and differential diagnosis of which subluxation wants to be adjusted at any given moment in time? When we teach TRT we show you 14 different indicators of subluxation and train you in the differential diagnosis technique that gives you absolute certainty and precision in making this vital decision…

An interesting question arising from my hypothetical above is for our profession as wellness providers. I used the weekly example based on the observation that:

1) If I could get adjusted as often as I liked I would probably get an adjustment every week;

2) I conducted a highly informal survey of a group of my practice members when I asked them “if you could get adjusted whenever you liked and it didn’t cost you anything, how often would you get adjusted?” The most common reply was “I’d come every week”;

3) I have been using functional assessment technologies in my practice for over a decade and have observed qualitatively and quantitatively the biggest changes when clients are getting adjusted weekly (go beyond three weeks and you will see a significant percentage of clients start to deteriorate functionally);

4) Many chiropractors I have met who claim to be wellness DCs get adjusted weekly and recommend weekly adjustments.

But, how much would this cost the community if every man, woman and child was adjusted weekly: Using the round figure of 20 million people and $40 per adjustment, that comes to $800 million per week.

Here’s the ultimate challenge: We would have to be able to demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that we were saving the Australian economy at least $1 Billion per week? Can we do this? Your thoughts are welcome…

Whether or not we all agree on the theory that Subluxation is the cause of ALL illness - most DCs agree that there are three primary causes of Subluxation - Physical, Chemical and Mental.

At our TRT programs I ask the participants to rank these factors, and we always get 100% agreement - Emotional factors are by far the most common cause of Subluxation. So how does this revelation impact your every day clinical conversation and your adjusting procedures? Let me put this another way - what system/s do you have in place in your practice to identify and correct the emotional component which is causing most of your practice members, the majority of their problems?

What happens in your practice when someone is responding slower than you would expect, they keep exacerbating their condition, or you keep identifying the same recurring subluxations?

Here’s what it sounds like in most chiropractic offices: “Well Fred, what did you do on the weekend - did you do any gardening or lifting? Tell me about your office chair at work. How many hours do you spend in front of the computer? Are you doing some exercises? What position do you sleep in? Tell me more about that car accident you had 55 years ago.”

Notice something missing? Where were the questions to identify the emotional cause, let alone the second most common cause of subluxation - chemical? Physical, physical, physical…

Do you want to be a wellness chiropractor and not a back doctor? Then you need to connect with your practice members on an emotional level. This has got nothing to do with counseling or psychology, and it’s definitely not about finding new referrals for the Beyond Blue program. But it is about providing your customers with a more holistic service…

Next time you find yourself in the above scenario, stop yourself before you blow the opportunity for a learning moment, and try this instead…

“So Fred, why do you think that your body is having trouble getting better as fast as YOU would like?” Fred’s usual answer will be “well I d’know, your the doctor?”

“Have I told you that there are actually three causes of subluxation? There’s the obvious one, the physical stuff that happens to you and that you do to yourself. Then there’s chemical stuff; you know, all the toxic stuff that we eat and drink, and all the poisons that exist around us in our homes and in the environment, like allergies. Then the one you might not have thought of before, is the mind - this is actually the most common and the most severe cause of subluxation. Fred, can you think of any mental or emotional stuff in your life that might be creating stress inside your body?” Now don’t drop the ball, stay silent until Fred comes up with some ideas… Then adjust him as per usual.

Like I said, this doesn’t have to lead to a psychotherapy or hypnotherapy program; just the therapeutic power of the identification and connection of HIS emotional stuff with his subluxation will astound you….